HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ cesaref

Not only that, but also a Vectrex! The technology was so impressive in the early 80s in arcade games that used it, my first experience of proper 3d graphics effects (e.g. battlezone and star wars). I'm not sure how the colour support worked on the star wars machine thinking about it...

⬐ bitwize

My guess is the same way color raster CRTs work: there's an aperture grille or shadow mask and three electron guns, and the grille masks off the beam of each gun except for where it's supposed to hit its corresponding color phosphors. Color mixing is performed by tracing over the same vector lines with more than one gun.

If you look carefully at a Star Wars arcade machine, you can see the shadow mask in the vector lines. You cannot see this on, say, an Asteroids machine or a Vectrex; on those, the lines are smooth and sharper than a draftsman's straightedge.

Everyone should experience an original Asteroids, or failing that something like the Vectrex, at least once in their lives. It's indescribably different from emulation; the long-decay phosphor and direct CPU control over brightness means that shots and explosions glitter in the dark in a way not even MAME can replicate.

⬐ joezydeco

Jed Margolin, Atari engineer, wrote the ultimate papers on how the Atari vector games worked. These two pieces are excellent reading when you have the time:

The Secret Life of XY Monitors : http://jedmargolin.com/xy/xymons.htm

The Secret Life of Vector Generators : http://jedmargolin.com/vgens/vgmenu.htm

The first covers how the tube worked, the second covers how the Atari systems generated the graphics to show on-screen.

⬐ Bluecobra

Also the Retro Game Mechanics Explained channel on YouTube has a very well put together video about this as well:

https://youtu.be/smStEPSRKBs

⬐ cbm-vic-20

Another anecdote about the original Asteroids machines- the dynamic brightness of the vector displays added a great effect: the asteroids themselves were sort of grayish lines with very sharp, crisp edges, but shots fired from alien spaceships were searingly bright, and would and up also exciting the phoshor around the shot itself, lending a bit of a halo effect.

⬐ kzrdude

This slow mo video of a vector graphics arcade machine recently introduced me to this technology - I was a bit too young to actually be there in person, so never realized that this kind of CRT (?) drawing technology even existed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJVpYL44jUQ

⬐ cbanek

Friend of mine that I worked with had a Vectrex! I was also blown away seeing this, it was such a neat machine. That was back in the day when video game systems hum was a definitive part of the experience.

⬐ account42

I'm too young to have used a Vectrex, but I like this demo that it inspired:

VX2 by Spectrals https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=85304

⬐ bsenftner

I worked for the company that made the Vetrex in the mid 90's. By that time they'd become the company for bowling and similar physics based games. Jay Smith, owner of the company, wrote all the physics sims himself, in Excel, which we the programmers translated to C.

⬐ wgx

"Communication between computers over normal telephone lines"

As a kid, I would have walked up, seen that, and my mind would be reeling with the possibilities. Computers that can talk to each other remotely! The hassle and the hurdles you'd have to overcome just to send a message to another Atari over dial-up.

It's 40 years later and we all have a portalable, always-on computer in our pockets, with instant access to all the world's information. Just mind blowing progress in 40 years.

⬐ dbrueck

> my mind would be reeling with the possibilities

Right?? When I was about 14 or so I got ahold of my very first modem - a 300bps acoustic coupler; that beast must have weighed 20 pounds. I don't know what I was expecting when we connected to a local BBS for the first time, but when I saw characters from a remote computer show up on my screen, it was like the world shifted. I had no way to grasp the implications of it all, but I could sense it was significant, and it impacted me so strongly that that memory is still crystal clear 30 years later.

⬐ iancmceachern

They're truly tricorders. They can 3d scan the world, they can broadcast live to the entire world, they can connect you with a doctor and help diagnose your illness, on and on.

⬐ dwighttk

Point it at a bird or bug or flower and get an ID

Record a birdsong and get an ID

⬐ iancmceachern

Tell you who sings the songs playing

⬐ zitsarethecure

Phyphox really does it for me to get that "a tricorder, but real" feeling.

https://phyphox.org/

⬐ StanislavPetrov

On the term I used to dial with my 300 baud modem on my Atari 800 you had to specify "ATDT" (tone) or "ATDP" (pulse) because rotary dialing was still much more common.

⬐ wil421

When I was young my dad hooked up 2 computers so my brother and I could play 2 player Doom II (could’ve been Doom but unlikely). It was probably 5fps and barely playable. My brother and I almost fell out of our chairs when we saw the other player. It blew my mind being able to see another player and what he looked like in game.

⬐ bluedino

> It was probably 5fps and barely playable.

Did you have 386's?

⬐ zxcvbn4038

Playing with all video games was the only reason to go to Sears. JCPenny would usually have a Mac stashed someplace, but all you could do with it was paint waffle patterns on the screen. ;) I never appreciated the vectrex while it was out, I wish I had gotten one in hindsight.

It is really amazing how well the arcade vector screens have held up over the years, I have never seen one with phosphor burn or screen issues. Which is good because nobody has made those in decades, doubt retro arcade enthusiasts are enough of a market that anyone ever will again.

All the Neo-Geo cabinets I've found lately have had a heavy green tint. Its like they all went within a couple years of each other. I'm not sure why people don't swap out the screens while CRTs are still easy to obtain.

⬐ tenebrisalietum

Some I've seen have deflection issues, and lines are distorted near the edges of the screen, maybe something solveable with degaussing or other adjustments.

⬐ dangus

You know how they say "they don't build em like they used to?"

Take a look at these appliance prices!

$399 for a microwave ($1200 today)

$299 for a sewing machine ($920 today)

$699 for an Atari computer ($2100 today)

I wish I could see the washer/dryer prices in the video as well.

If you want something to be built "like the used to," you really do have to pay for it. There's a reason that your $400 Hotpoint washing machine doesn't perform like a $1600 Speed Queen.

⬐ bluedino

Those were all assembled in America, as well. (Atari didn't shutter the 1,700 employee Sunnyvale factory until 1983, sending production overseas)

⬐ kube-system

And honestly, as expensive and overbuilt on the outside as many old appliances were, some of their technology wasn't that great. Brushed motors, belted transmissions, and mechanical timer switches were not really that reliable, even if you could throw the thing down a flight of stairs without a scratch. And they were pretty crude in operation. There was no "delicate" cycle on those old machines, heck, they'd shred t-shirts if you looked at them the wrong way.

People really do have rose tinted glasses.

⬐ coder4life

This links to the 4 minute 4 second mark when they show them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edTzDPwPTt4&t=244s

⬐ focusedone

This is amazing stuff! I love seeing when people have preserved random b-roll type things from different eras.

⬐ _the_inflator

Coincidentally 1982, the year Tron hit the cinemas!

Fantastic footage. Sewing machines were all the rage I guess. ;)

⬐ wishfish

To bring it back to the Atari 800, I remember magazines like Compute and Antic having breathless headlines about how Atari and Commodore played some big part in making the movie. As the new owner of an 800 in 1982, I was quite excited by this. Thinking my Atari could render a lightcycle! Turns out, it was minor sound effect work done on the Ataris. That wasn't quite as exciting.

⬐ mellavora

> Sewing machines were all the rage I guess. ;)

The Simplicity Pattern Company has been selling sewing pattern guides since 1927.

In the early 1970s it was one of the "Nifty Fifties":

> The Nifty Fifty were a group of premier growth stocks, such as Xerox, IBM, Polaroid, and Coca-Cola, that became institutional darlings in the early 1970s. All of these stocks had proven growth records, continual increases in dividends (virtually none had cut its dividend since World War II), and high market capitalization.

> The Nifty Fifty were often called one-decision stocks: buy and never sell. Because their prospects were so bright, many analysts claimed that the only direction they could go was up. Since they had made so many rich, few if any investors could fault a money manager for buying them. At the time, many investors did not seem to find 50, 80 or even 100 times earnings at all an unreasonable price to pay for the world’s preeminent growth companies.

http://csinvesting.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/valuing-gr...

⬐ greggman3

The demo in the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgT8279DVGQ

⬐ drewg123

I'd like to go back and get some of those appliances. Today's washing machines are terrible.

⬐ Jemm

My first access to a personal computer was in a department store where they had Commodore PETs on display. Sales guy didn't know how to use them so was happy to let us stand there for hours playing with them.

⬐ zikduruqe

We use to think we were hackers and would write up BASIC code something like:

    10 PRINT CHR$(147)
    20 X = 1
    30 FOR X+1
    30 PRINT X
    40 GOTO 20

Then run away cackling as the numbers kept printing thinking that somehow it would run forever.

(or something like that... it was 40 years ago)

⬐ rexreed

Oh fun! BASIC debugging ;) You're resetting X to 1 on line 20 and the FOR statement isn't valid and a duplicate line 30. But all for fun

    30 X = X+1
    40 PRINT X
    50 GOTO 30

Thanks for getting my mind back in BASIC mode ;)

⬐ technothrasher

You need your knuckles rapped for that code. It reminds me of the "spot the errors" assignments my teacher in high school computer class would give us ;-)

As for the department store computer displays, I do remember K-Mart would have the Atari 2600's running in some kind of demo mode so it would reboot whatever game it was playing after about 5 minutes. I learned I could just barely win "Superman" before the reboot, if I started it right away.

⬐ yuan43

Couple of thoughts.

1. In the background you can hear a series of two or three chimes/tones. This was a constant part of the department store experience. It was a communication system that I guess eliminated the need to tell customers what exactly was happening.

https://ask.metafilter.com/14044/Department-Store-Chimes

2. That vertical black box with the space wars clone was a Vectrex. A kid was playing it and it was on display at the checkout counter (amazingly, unoccupied). It would have been brand new at the time.

> The Vectrex is a vector display-based home video game console–the only one ever designed and released for the home market, developed by Smith Engineering. It was first released for the North America market in November 1982 and then Europe and Japan in 1983. Originally manufactured by General Consumer Electronics, it was later licensed to Milton Bradley after they acquired the company. Bandai released the system in Japan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectrex

3. November 1982 marked the end of the then-worst recession since the Great Depression.

> Prior to the 2007-09 recession, the 1981-82 recession was the worst economic downturn in the United States since the Great Depression. Indeed, the nearly 11 percent unemployment rate reached late in 1982 remains the apex of the post-World War II era (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis). Unemployment during the 1981-82 recession was widespread, but manufacturing, construction, and the auto industries were particularly affected. Although goods producers accounted for only 30 percent of total employment at the time, they suffered 90 percent of job losses in 1982. Three-fourths of all job losses in the goods-producing sector were in manufacturing, and the residential construction industry and auto manufacturers ended the year with 22 percent and 24 percent unemployment, respectively (Urquhart and Hewson 1983, 4-7).

https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/recession-of-19...

4. It's interesting to consider that the raw footage collected in the clip may be more valuable than the actual news story ever was. It's really hard to know what future generations will find compelling.

⬐ recursive

Surprised to hear Moonlight Sonata in a retail shopping setting. One of the most powerfully depressing pieces of music I can think of.

⬐ kloch

I think the goal of mall music back then was to put customers in a trance so they would mindlessly shop

⬐ allturtles

From 8:03, we know this is in the Washington D.C. metro area. Can anyone identify the mall from the establishing shot at 8:46?

⬐ pookha

Pretty sure it's landmark mall (RIP).

https://nostalgicvirginian.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/LS...

⬐ kloch

That would make sense since this was a news crew from DC and that was one of the closest malls for them to visit.

The Proper People recently did a video in Landmark Mall just days before it was demolished, including a walk through the old Sears which was in very bad shape:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L106fYg9H5M

⬐ jetrink

The selection of music being played in the store is really interesting. It's not the happy, peppy set of Christmas songs you hear today, that's for sure. Instead, there's the Moonlight Sonata, which is literally the first result you get when if you Google 'sad piano music.'

⬐ antiterra

I have no memory of those neat Atari 800 kiosks, but plenty of memories of 2600s, colecovision, intellivision, sears entertainment center, etc. This would lead me to conclude the 800 failed quickly. Yet, somehow the Atari 800 wasn’t discontinued until the 90s??

⬐ aidenn0

The Atari 8-bit series was an also-ran compared to the C64, but the very first Logo I used was on an Atari 8-bit at school. Apple eventually ran a very successful campaign to get Apple II based systems into schools, and so the few Atari 8-bit machines we had at my school ended up collecting dust in a corner.

[edit]

A total of 4M units were sold, which is about equal to 2 years of sales of the C64 when it was at peak popularity.

⬐ gernb

What a ridiculous way yo frame things. Assuming wikipedia is correct, Atari sold 4million units, C64 sold ~17. So I guess Macs are "also-ran" compared to Windows PCs as Macs have an even lower market share (currently 9%)

⬐ aidenn0

1. In terms of sales volume, macs are an also-ran. Lenovo, HP, and Dell each ship more laptops than Apple. I'm traveling now, at my Uncle's house with many family members visiting; there are:

- 2 Surface Pros

- 2 Dell Laptops

- 1 HP Laptop

- One mac Laptop

2. Apple is clearly positioned as a luxury brand; it's fine to object to calling BMW an also-ran to Toyota or Ford. The Atari 8-bit systems were at least priced mid-ranged, so I'm not sure that applies here. The expansion bus was positioned as easy-to-use, but that's about the only parallel I can think of.

3. There were other 8-bit computers; C64 doesn't make up the entirety of the market; The Apple II sold 5M; the TRS-80 sold 2.4M; Amstrad sold 3M.

4. When the units were sold matters too; there were 8-bit machines being sold along side 32-bit machines, with the 8-bit machine being a budget option. The TRS-80 was not being sold during this later period; it was the best selling computer of the 1970s. This doesn't seem to significantly affect comparisons between the Atari 8-bit line and Commodore or Apple though, as the IIgs and atari 8-bit line both ended in 1992 and the C64 sold relatively few units in 1993.

⬐ CWuestefeld

Not disagreeing at all, but amplifying...

It seems silly to compare Atari and Commodore in this way. They were both playing in a very immature market that really had no idea what direction it was going in, so their strategies bear little resemblance to today's mature and saturated market.

Speaking as someone who lived through the whole thing, there were clear technological benefits to both machines. For example, the C64 had the SID just, bringing vastly superior sound. On the Atari 800 side (which is what I owned), the expansion bus was not just easier to use, but also allowed the floppy drives to outperform those of the Commodore competition.

And the design of the Atari BASIC language was superior. C64 did have some better hardware but as I recall you needed to do goofy things like POKE special values into odd memory addresses to use them. By contrast, I recall Atari's combination of COLOR and SETCOLOR commands, which at first seemed baffling but later the realization of how they worked together (and other similar sorts of things) did a lot to help me understand software systems.

⬐ antiterra

If you’re doing both 400 and 800 combined, then you’d probably include the C128 and possibly the VIC20 for another 7+ million.

⬐ guidedlight

I can’t actually see the 2600 in this game, only a wall of shame behind the salespeople.

The only game control appears to be the intellivision running Donkey Kong.

It’s noteworthy that this was just before the 1983 video game crash.

⬐ quickthrower2

Nice quality video footage, well preserved, considering it is for 1982.

⬐ kloch

This was definitely from a professional rig, likely a local news channel ENG crew. Given the date - December 1982 - it would have to be either 1" Type C, 3/4" Umatic, or Betacam.

The complete lack of comet trails on bright lights (especially the camera light reflection on the monitor screen) indicates a 3x plumbicon tube camera (vs saticon). This would seem to rule out Betacam since the only portable camera/VTR options initially were 3x Saticon or 1x Trinicon (vidicon). Betacam had just been released in August 1982.

The resolution/noise/stability seems to be much better than what you can get out of 3/4" Umatic and I don't see any of the usual head switching artifacts or dropouts.

This leaves only portable 1" Type C. In that case this was the best possible portable video quality you could get in 1982.

⬐ h3mb3

I wish it was 60 fps though. At some point the footage was probably deinterlaced by discarding every other field. (Also, YouTube would not show it as 60 fps anyways as the resolution must be upscaled to at least 720p for the 60 fps option to be available.)

I understand this is very typical with online video. I wish it wasn't though.

⬐ hammock

Have you never watched a movie from before the 90's? :)

⬐ quickthrower2

Star Wars? :) Sure, the tech was there, but it probably wasn't affordable for everything. Plus the preservation. This is before mass consumer digital media (maybe something like laserdiscs were available though?)

⬐ boondaburrah

It's weirder than that; I watched the Silicon Cowboys documentary about compaq, and the archived footage quality takes a sharp dive from the 70s to the 80s as they switched from recording on film to videotape.

Tape quality was good and a lot cheaper, but it doesn't last as long before the video signal gets munged

⬐ boondaburrah

I wish the stupid youtube compressor hadn't hit it with the "SD doesn't matter" settings. VHS should look way better than this, but there's digital macroblocks everywhere, and as sibling comment said, no longer 60i.

I agree though, for a videotape that old, it must not have been played very much for the tracking to still be that solid. Also modern "record NTSC Video to your computer" USB dongles tend to be unable to deal with even slightly unsteady CSYNC signal, so they must've used good equipment. Too bad about the youtube.

⬐ kdtop

I lived at that time, and I don't remember it looking like that. All the colors are washed out!

⬐ visarga

When I see Atari I think "cute RL environments". Nice historic video.

⬐ tiahura

10 PRINT “EAT ME!”

11 PRINT

20 GOTO 10

⬐ thyrox

> This video comes from btm0815ma whose channel was tragically shut down and who had uploaded more news and historical footage than anyone else on YouTube.

That's sad. But looks like Good guy internet archive saved some of their videos(1) though so not everything was destroyed forever.

(1) https://archive.org/details/btm0815ma

⬐ mgdlbp

Apparently many of the channel's uploads are from the 'ABC News Archives',[0] so they might not be entirely lost. Maybe prod IA to see if its tv news project can ingest it officially, or already have.

BTW a quick scrape (raw HTML, missing any JS-loaded stuff) of archived btm0815ma channel pages[1] finds some more videos that were saved "naturally" in the wayback machine:

  https://web.archive.org/web/*/wayback-fakeurl.archive.org/yt/<ID>

  Qcdo0oENjCc 60 Minutes (CBS) - 1994-04-24
  SEqbaaxsEqI NBC Nightly News - 2003-11-19
  mHHacMAFZxc Viewpoint (ABC) - 1994-07-22
  NXQvrVQw1Uw What About Tomorrow? on computers (1973)
  RZB1zY6yKDc Democratic Convention (1968) - 8 - Day 3
  gEGCPC3GfC4 CBS Evening News open - 1994-11-09
  V7UcBk2A_58 CBS News - Video games (1995)
  T0yWcB5f1Qs CBS News - TV Nielsen ratings (1984)
  LnDZi85n-Ac CBS News - Claymation (1986)
  o7ujCaLV8SA CBS News - various Apollo 11 reports - 1969-07
  HF1k6HnJrTU CBS Evening News - 1980-08-05
  B5-WkCUlXe4 The Video History of Our Times - 1940
  Sabw_n3EYC4 The Video History of Our Times - 1945
  U8dknEvXw40 The Video History of Our Times - 1946
  813sTJDv0cc The Video History of Our Times - 1941
  fuskHqS8QRk 60 Minutes (CBS) - "Underground Railroad" - 1988-10-16
  ZExs5rFpIkg 60 Minutes (CBS) - "The Prince of Penny Stocks" (1988)
  4GtTNe6N3ds 60 Minutes (CBS) - George Burns - 1988-11-06
  MQOBNTMwqTE 60 Minutes (CBS) - Home Shopping Club - 1988-12-18
  9itrdPnp3l4 World News (ABC) - 2009-11-05
  Jf3kACc68bk NBC Nightly News - 2011-03-15
  hHp0565IdKs NBC Nightly News - 2011-03-14
  jMmZKafb6no American Parade (CBS) - The Contra War (1984)
  o11zhy-43yE CBS Evening News (Western) - 1979-09-04
  d21Z8oXybig CBS Reports: Robert F. Kennedy (1967)
  slUnV2RabfI 60 Minutes (CBS) - "Secrets and Lies" (1997)
  OS0QNJ0Xbaw Nintendo of America headquarters (1990)
  UrTS_lmPQ1k CBS Evening News - 2011-03-12
  ITtQigDn0FU CBS News - 2003-03-19 - 11:35 p.m. - 2 of 3
  r0xsJFREmOU Carter's final hours in the White House (1981)
  x_t-iKeWdRI Steve Jobs in 1991
  SkNnWxDKxh4 CBS - 1990-07-26 - report on Roseanne Barr
  GWgL5W0b6k0 Dan Rather signs off with "Courage" - September 1986
  zsa72D8Kegc Public Broadcast Laboratory: The Whole World Is Watching (1968)

0 https://twitter.com/shabanianaram/status/1490172899868565505

1 https://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=youtube.com/chann...

That's quite an interesting documentary on HCI, including maths pedagogy with turtle robot graphics from the Logo Project at MIT. There's no trace of the series elsewhere on the web...

“The computer symbolizes both the promise and problems we face in our complex, man-machine world. Its misuse by large institutions irritates us. Its misuse by government could threaten us. But its potential for extending our ability to communicate and our knowledge of ourselves is enormous. If it is made relatively easy for anyone to use, the chances are far greater that it will be used on the side of man.

“No longer can we ask, ‘What can we do?’ But rather, ‘How can what we do give us a better world?’ In future programs in this series, we'll look into research that just might point to solutions for our cities, our healthcare, and our education. We'll discover that there is hope, but there are no quick, easy answers to the question we ask: What about tomorrow? This is Jules Bergman.”

⬐ None

None

⬐ userbinator

If it was due to copyright reasons, then archive.org is definitely a good place to store the material, and it would be good to upload there intead; indeed, maybe he has already started to do so.

⬐ mongol

How come it is a good location? Does archive.org allow copyrighted material?

⬐ kevin_thibedeau

Yes. They are excepted from violation as a chartered library. It shouldn't be abused but that is what allows them to archive material under active copyright.

⬐ Kozmik1

Check out those prices! That Atari 800 at $699 would be $2,150 today adjusted for inflation. I guess it was pretty capable but today you could have a hell of a computer for that price!

The sewing machine at $300 is $920 today and looks basic as heck. I bought a computerized sewing machine last year for $400 which sews 40 stitches and is basically automated. You could get a basic Singer today for 85 bucks.

Those microwaves would come in at about $1,200 in today’s dollars. Most of us spend about $50 on one today, granted the quality is probably crap.

How did people afford to buy anything back then? I recall my parents getting the Beta Max player, big 30” TV and satellite dish back in the early 1980s (we lived in the country). Throw in a stereo and a few kitchen appliances and I think it would rival what they paid for our house!

⬐ hinkley

I learned about microwave ovens at my grandma's house. We couldn't afford one. She had one that was so old it had dials on it.

https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nma...

Given the bits of family finances I heard I'm sure she bought it new, not used. She had a stove the size of a fridge tipped over too. It had its own wall in the kitchen. I have never seen its like in any other house, movie or TV show (I did at one point rent a house that had the oven from Bewitched in it as recently as 2010. That was a weird beast of an oven. Burned the fuck out of my hand when I accidentally set it to 'broil' and touched the glass to see if it was on. Luckily it was my left hand but still)

⬐ tinus_hn

For modern microwave ovens, the dials are actually the most expensive parts. The alternative computerized fake keys and display are much cheaper.

⬐ Lendal

Go and live out in the country for a few months. Take nothing with you but the clothes on your back. You'll be amazed. You don't really need all the stuff you think you need. From my perspective growing up in the 70's if you had a microwave, a sewing machine, and an Atari machine, you were wealthy. This video is good evidence of that.

⬐ SoftTalker

Very true. Growing up in the 1970s, we did not have a computer. I wrote papers and reports for school using a typewriter. We did not have a microwave. We did not have a dishwasher. We had a 14" TV. Home music system was a record player. No video games at home. The phone was mounted on the wall, provided by the phone company, shared by everyone in the house. We were very much middle class, my parents were probably more frugal than most but this was pretty typical of all my friends.

⬐ kube-system

The lower prices we pay now are the result of decades of outsourcing, automation, and value engineering.

Back in the day, your average family didn't pay $1,200 for a microwave, they went without. We didn't have a microwave, or a dishwasher, or most of the other kitchen appliances people now enjoy. Those things were for rich people. We cooked popcorn on the stove and washed the dishes in the sink afterwards.

⬐ api

> How did people afford to buy anything back then?

Gadgets and appliances were a lot more costly back then but housing, tuition, health care, and food were all quite a bit cheaper.

We've had 30+ years of "disinflation" or "in-deflation" which is high inflation in everything you need and deflation in everything else.

The common denominator in the things that have inflated is that they're hard to outsource.

⬐ kube-system

Food was not cheaper back then, it is cheaper now. The food market is much more global and mechanized than it was in the 80s.

When I was younger, "imported food" was a novelty because the local in-season food was all you could normally get.

Now it's (hilariously) the opposite.

⬐ api

I stand a bit corrected on food but I think tuition and health care and especially housing are not debatable. Housing is particularly bad and overwhelms any improvements in food.

⬐ tyingq

The low prices for bigger ticket items like college tuition and houses more than made up the difference. Yes, even after adjusting for inflation.

⬐ refurb

Yup, I remember my parents being very frugal but then realized they bought an Intellivision for us kids that cost $400 in the mid-80s, when the median household income was ~$20k.

With household incomes being almost $70k today, that's like spending $1400 on a video game system today.

⬐ dicknuckle

Which people often do with PC builds. Not much different in terms of cost.

⬐ justsomehnguy

Depends.

If my memory serves me well, I did a $320 build somewhere in ~2010 for a friend. For the giggles I launched F.E.A.R. on it. It worked.

⬐ joezydeco

What's the price of a decent gaming PC these days? About the same?

⬐ HNDen21

I still remember what I paid for a PC in 1997.... $3500 for a dell with 128MB of ram, 400 MHz Pentium II, 10MB HD, zip drive, 21 inch monitor... My wife's company paid for half of it.. otherwise would have bough a cheaper one... 2 years later you could buy all that for less than half with a 1GHZ P III

⬐ justsomehnguy

Define 'decent'.

Since ~ 1995 a decent PC (runs everything, not a mind blowing rig) were always around $2000 with monitor, with a sharp decline to $1000 around late '00 and a slight increase since then but there is nothing a $200 GPU with a decent CPU and enough amount of RAM can't what a rig $4000+ can't do, only slower.

⬐ Clent

This era had something called "layaway" -- put a percentage down and then you could make random incremental payments and take it home when it was fully paid for.

This was used much more frequently than children of the era might remember.

⬐ snorkel

The microwave was relatively new back then, but it was so useful that everyone was willing to save up for one. Sewing machines and Atari 800 … not so much. Atari 2600 was worth the expense except for Pac Man and E.T.

This was some years before consumer goods all being made in China and sold at bigger box stores and online at much lower cost. Sears was never seen as a bargain hunters store, and alas it didn’t last in the age of low margin consumer goods retailers.

⬐ NonNefarious

Remember that an Apple at the time, which lacked a great many of the Atari's capabilities, was about double that.

⬐ smm11

I've mentioned a time or two that if you think it's a recession now, good thing you didn't experience the mid-70s or early-80s.

And inflation? We bought stuff like a microwave, or TV, or game system maybe once, years apart.

⬐ JustSomeNobody

> How did people afford to buy anything back then?

Because that was pretty much all you bought. Things were, indeed, simpler then. People didn't need McMansions to hold all their shit.

⬐ alamortsubite

Yes, and those prices likely didn't include any peripherals. If you wanted a tape drive ("program recorder"), floppy drive, or modem you paid extra.

⬐ bluedino

> Those microwaves would come in at about $1,200 in today’s dollars. Most of us spend about $50 on one today, granted the quality is probably crap.

The family microwave when I was a kid was a Magnavox Carousel. It was BIG. It had a very simple dial to set the time and power. I despise todays kitchen appliances with membrane keypads and having to hit TIME 2 0 0 COOK

My parents only got rid of that thing recently.

⬐ samch

Just from my memories, we didn’t have as much stuff competing for our income. There were no cell phones or ISP bills, and we didn’t have cable TV either. This made it easier to save a little bit every month to afford these more expensive items. It really was a simpler time.

Also, if a sewing machine or microwave broke, you would get it repaired rather than replaced with a new one. It was expected that these big ticket items were long-term purchases. Because of that, people tended to care a bit more about the reputation of the brand and how easily you could get things serviced. Sears, for example, had service centers everywhere.

⬐ vlunkr

> Also, if a sewing machine or microwave broke, you would get it repaired rather than replaced with a new one

This is a big trade-off. The way things are now, I wouldn't mind swinging back that way a bit. Our houses are filled with electronics that are one failed component away from being trash.

On top of that, it's pretty hard to know if you're buying garbage or not, even from retailers that should be reputable. (I blame Amazon for setting that trend).

⬐ p_j_w

On top of all of this, you have the horrific effects on the environment of plastic waste and excessive manufacturing.

⬐ justinlloyd

When considering "reputable brands" look at the length of warranty on an item. We purchased a countertop oven late last year. The warranty was five years parts & labour. Every major brand was one year warranty. The closet we could get was a single major brand with a three year warranty. That's my litmus test these days; not branding, not marketing, not price, not availability, not "reviews", not Consumer Reports. One number - how long is your warranty and does it cover parts and labour?

⬐ bluedino

> Just from my memories, we didn’t have as much stuff competing for our income. There were no cell phones or ISP bills, and we didn’t have cable TV either.

There were bills back then that people had, that you don't have today.

* Daily newspaper subscription

* Telephone line (plus long distance calls...expensive back then)

* Cigarettes - people used to smoke every day

Cable TV was not as popular but many people had it in the 80's. Premium channels as well. People still rented movies back then, bought VCR's, records, tapes, they bought more magazines and books.

⬐ kube-system

Yeah, we had two telephone bills into the mid 90s. One for the phone line, and one for long distance. And before my time, you used to have to rent the phone from the phone company as well.

⬐ throwaway0a5e

You also didn't have the internet hype machine (i.e. people with no experience in whatever you're asking about who feel compelled to answer anyway) telling you that you that your off brand blender with 99% the MBTF of the name brand one is vastly inferior.

⬐ stickfigure

The television advertising hype machine was running full force in the 80s, and most people watched hours of television every day. Do not imagine that information was more reliable back then. Despite the internet's imperfections, it is much easier to find good product information now.

⬐ throwaway0a5e

The TV commercial was trying to sell you something and you knew it. You don't know whether the moron on HN/Reddit/whatever actually believes what they're saying about a product or is lying to you to justify their own purchase.

You can find product specs much easier these days but subjective product information is no easier to come by. Well, it's easier to come by, but you can't easily pick it out from the sea of BS.

⬐ antiterra

I knew of a decent number of people with cable TV in the early 80s, but it was also not uncommon to have a powered antenna on the roof that you would rotate to the ideal orientation to receive a channel via a dial. I do remember a long period of time where it was common to rent the VCR along with the VHS video tape containing the movie you wanted to watch. This was even a thing for the Nintendo 64.

⬐ marpstar

When I was a kid, my mother would take me and my brother to Blockbuster every Friday. We could each rent a game. Every time we'd go, we'd beg her to let us rent whatever the newest console was at the time (mostly Playstation, though we rented GameBoy Color a few times, too).

She'd give in occasionally. After we had finally come to own a PS1 and N64, my brother and I had a paper route and would buy cheap used games instead of renting.